Web Exclusive Book Reviews: 10/26/2009

-- Publishers Weekly, 10/26/2009

NONFICTION

The Arctic Gold Rush: The New Race for Tomorrow's Natural Resources
Roger Howard. Continuum, $25.95 (259p) ISBN 9781441181107
In this dense but rewarding read, journalist and international relations specialist Howard (The Oil Hunters)looks at the strategic implications of climate change in the Arctic region. Dismissing the “much discussed” scenario of “brutal, bitter and bloody confrontation” over the region’s rich resources, (Howard believes that as resources run low worldwide, market-driven economies will recognize cooperation as their best strategy), he sees the “real risk of future confrontation” in the Arctic’s “strategic location. As ice melts and borders shift, disputes may arise over which countries—the U.S., Russia, Canada, Greenland—own the Arctic, creating a cascade of problems logistical, economic and military. If, for example, “Chinese or Russian energy companies could establish a presence in a petroleum-rich place like Greenland,” then the U.S. might feel threatened. Other industries like international shipping will certainly be affected: “sailing between London and Tokyo would be reduced by 3,500 miles.” Howard goes into grim detail regarding every aspect of the complex situation, but is guardedly optimistic that treaties can resolve these issues. Environmentalists and political buffs should find this an interesting and unexpected analysis. (Nov.)

The Best Food Writing 2009
Edited by Holly Hughes. Da Capo Lifelong, $15.95 paper (368p) ISBN 9780738213699
Editor Hughes skims the cream off a year’s worth of culinary journalism in the latest annual. As with previous editions, Hughes captures the gastronomic zeitgeist in a broad range of essays; she opens strong with Timothy Taylor’s witty take on connoisseurs and gourmands, an examination of the slow and raw food movements, and a vendor’s take on farmers’ markets. Though some topics, like legendary steak houses and the neighborhood diner, have been done to death, they’re carried by the quality of the writing. John DeLucie’s sardonic account of his truffled macaroni and cheese, as well as Tim Carman’s brilliant “How Not to Hire a Chef,” are the kind of slice-of-life tales that deserve a wider audience, and make up for the volume’s misses (Margaret McArthur’s take on cooking the perfect soft-boiled egg, Lettie Teague’s piece on wine scams). Other crowd-pleasers include Calvin Trillin’s quest for the best barbecue in Texas and Robb Walsh’s all-too-short examination of a classic pairing: oysters with martinis. This is a sound reader for those looking to catch up on trends in the culinary world, but foodies already immersed in the culture are sure to find some overlooked gems. (Nov.)

Dogtown: Tales of Rescue, Rehabilitation and Redemption
Stefan Bechtel. National Geographic, $26 (304p) ISBN 9781426205620
Utah’s Best Friends Animal Society, home of the National Geographic Channel series “Dogtown,” is the nation’s largest no-kill animal sanctuary, tending to some of the most unwanted, hard-to-rehabilitate dogs in animal rescue services. This collection of stories recounts and follows up on 15 of the most memorable dogs to appear on “Dogtown,” including a grieving Weimaraner who needs a new family to love, an elderly Chow Chow with a mysterious neurological condition, and a shy pit bull suffering from popular misconceptions of breed brutality. The stories are told with much contribution from the passionate, patient staffers, and run alongside a charming collection of photos showcasing the dogs at their most expressive. Animal lovers will have a hard time putting this down, though dog lovers in particular should keep the tissues handy. 65 b&w photos. (Oct.)

The Education of Mr. Mayfield: An Unusual Story of Social Change at Ole Miss
David Magee. John F. Blair, $19.95 (224p) ISBN 9780895873668
More than a decade before the University of Mississippi, a.k.a. Ole Miss, admitted its first black student, the friendship between a white art professor and a black artist quietly transcended the region’s deeply-held policy of racist segregation; columnist and Ole Miss alumnus Magee (The South is Round) charts this aberrant relationship, between University professor Stuart Purser and untrained artist M.B. Mayfield, a reticent, impoverished sharecropper who fed his endless drive to paint by extracting hues from flowers and vegetables. In 1949, initially attracted by the art and sculptures adorning Mayfield’s yard, Purser daringly invites Mayfield to work as a janitor at Ole Miss and take clandestine art lessons from him. (Even Oxford resident William Faulkner contributes to the cause, offering money for Mayfield’s art supplies.) Perhaps most remarkable is the endurance of Mayfield’s career through the enormous social upheaval of desegregation: Ole Miss’s first black student, admitted in 1962, drew an angry mob armed with “brickbats, sticks, and homemade firebombs.” Paralleling that pioneering student’s career with Mayfield’s, Magee illuminates the debate over discrimination, its hard-line adherents, and the heroes who defied it in a narrative sure to please historians, civil rights scholars and anyone looking for a heartwarming and entirely honest story of the Old South. B&w and color photos. (Oct.)

The Last Day of My Life
Jim Moret. Phoenix, $21.95 (158p) ISBN 9781607477013
Amidst accelerating personal, professional, and financial crises, L.A. journalist Moret was seriously contemplating suicide; he pulled through by seizing on the question of his last day—what would he cherish most?—as an opportunity to rediscover the beauty, love and value in his life. Devoting each of 24 chapters to a topic like sacrifice, tenacity, laughter, music, passion and wonder, Moret draws lessons from stories about friends and family, his childhood, personal obstacles, and his career at CNN and elsewhere. Moret’s smooth journalistic prose and 24-hour checklist make this a swift, focused inspirational memoir. (Nov.)

The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
Iain McGilchrist. Yale Univ., $38 (608p) ISBN 9780300148787
A U.K. mental health consultant and clinical director with a background in literature, McGilchrist attempts to synthesize his two areas of expertise, arguing that the “divided and asymmetrical nature” of the human brain is reflected in the history of Western culture. Part I, The Divided Brain, lays the groundwork for his thesis, examining two lobes’ significantly different features (structure, sensitivity to hormones, etc.) and separate functions (the left hemisphere is concerned with “what,” the right with “how”). He suggests that music, “ultimately… the communication of emotion,” is the “ancestor of language,” arising largely in the right hemisphere while “the culture of the written word tends inevitably toward the predominantly left hemisphere.” More controversially, McGilchrist argues that “there is no such thing as the brain” as such, only the brain as we perceive it; this leads him to conclude that different periods of Western civilization (from the Homeric epoch to the present), one or the other hemisphere has predominated, defining “consistent ways of being that persist” through time. This densely argued book is aimed at an academic crowd, is notable for its sweep but a stretch in terms of a uniting thesis. (Nov.)

The Metamorphoses of Tintin: Or Tintin for Adults
Jean-Marie Apostolidès, trans. from the French by Jocelyn Hay. Stanford Univ., $75 (312p) ISBN 9780804760300; $24.95 paper ISBN 9780804760317
Those who lament the dearth of books about Tintin in English will welcome this translation of a landmark French study, first published in 1984. Apostolidès surveys Hergé’s cartoon character’s evolution—political, cultural, psychological—from the earliest adventures, in which he’s a kind of superhero single-handedly meting out justice, to the last albums, in which he has become more fully human, if still largely an emotional cipher. As the author warns in the preface, he takes a largely Freudian approach whose vocabulary some may regard as “heavy or outdated.” Of Tintin’s move from Labrador Road to Marlinspike Hall, he says: “He becomes a full-fledged member of the family, without having to worry about the threat of castration that the Father had always held over the son for wanting to take his place.” On occasion, the translator missteps (e.g., Tintin teaches “calculus” instead of arithmetic to the young school children in Tintin in the Congo; Captain Haddock “disguises himself as a policeman on horseback” in Destination Moon when in fact he dresses up in the bearskin hat and red tunic of a soldier in a British Foot Guard regiment). On the other hand, Apostolidès provides insights into the word play of the original French texts that you won’t find in, say, Benoit Peeters’s Tintin and the World of Hergé (1988). Tintin fans who don’t mind some academic jargon will be rewarded. (Nov.)

Rowing the Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean
Roz Savage. Simon & Schuster, $24 (256p) ISBN 9781416583288
Savage, a famous ocean rower and motivational speaker, was a thirty-something non-athlete when she took up the sport, having just chucked her job and left her marriage. The only solo female entrant in the grueling 2005 Atlantic Rowing Race, Savage chronicles her initial voyage with a memoir of peril and perseverance. Savage’s lack of seamanship was her first major obstacle; almost immediately she developed “an ominous grinding pain in my shoulders that I knew… indicated the onset of tendonitis,” and discovered that “rowing on the River Thames and rowing on the ocean were… as different as climbing the stairs and climbing Mt. Everest.” Despite numerous challenges, Savage adapts and rises to the occasion, learning to handle the equipment (“less than a sixth of the way across [I was] already halfway through my supply of oars”), stay alert (“while I sleep my ears are pricked for any unfamiliar sound”) and appreciate the open water: “I loved the solitude, the wildness, the beauty. But the ocean and I would have got along better if she would strop trying to get in the boat with me.” Happily, this travelogue-with-lessons is minimally prescriptive, making it a great armchair adventure. (Oct.)

The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theater
Mike Thomas. Villard, $26 (288p) ISBN 9780345514226
For 50 years, Chicago’s Second City Theater has been the training ground for legendary comedians. From John Belushi to Stephen Colbert, many of America and Canada’s finest comic talents have honed their skills on Second City’s stage, and this collection of interviews brings together comedians and behind-the-scenes players to bare the secrets of the comedy laboratory where improv was birthed by lesser-known genius Del Close. From the egos, parties and conflicts to the camaraderie and familial ties, the world of Second City is brought together deftly through the testimony of its inhabitants, filling in readers curious about show business and comedy history as well as individual comedians (also including Joan Collins, Alan Arkin, Bill Murray, Eugene Levy, Bonnie Hunt, Tina Fey, Amy Sedaris, and others). Though occasionally meandering, Thomas corrals his subjects’ testimony in a historical framework paralleling the larger baby boomer narrative, progressing from fringe revolutionaries to institutional stalwarts. Testimony is funny, sentimental and hopeful, making this a winning collection for any fan of comedy’s last half-century. (Oct.)

Skipjack: The Story of America’s Last Sailing Oystermen
Christopher White. St. Martin, $25.99 (384p) ISBN 9780312545321
In late March 1978, biologist and science writer White (Chesapeake Bay) joined the crew of the sailing ship Rebecca T. Ruark, a “skipjack” that was “among the last sailboats still employed in commercial fishing in North America.” Renting a cottage in Tilghman, a village then untouched by development and tourism, White spent the next year chronicling the lives and community of the oystermen. In order to preserve the oyster population, an 1865 Maryland law limited the dredging of oysters to sail-powered ships; for over 140 years, this “enforced obsolescence” approach worked; now, however, the oyster population of the Bay (once “king of the American oyster”) is plummeting for reasons not entirely clear, though pollution, disease and more efficient fishing methods have all contributed. Naturally, what’s at stake is not just an important sea creature but a way of human life; White mines information and testimony on every aspect of community life, from family recipes to skipjack races to oyster wars, in a moving account. Examining the circumstances and difficult decisions of men like the skipper of the Rebecca, a third-generation oysterman, White provides on-the-ground insight into the possibilities and problems of simultaneously sustaining a community and an ecosystem. (Nov.)

 Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style
Mark Garvey. Touchstone, $22.99 (240p) ISBN 9781416590927
A fan’s meticulously researched, big-hearted tribute to a sturdy, perennial writing guide, this history of Elements of Style is complete and unreservedly affectionate.Assembled by William Strunk Jr. in the early 20th century for his college writing courses, Elements of Style’s ascent began when a young E.B. White (then Elwyn White) enrolled in Strunk’s course in 1919. Though it made no apparent impression on White at the time, he rediscovered it many years later as a staffer at The New Yorker; his 1957 New Yorker essaycelebrating its “squeaky voice from the past” and emphasis on fundamentals caught the eye of MacMillian textbook editor, Jack Case. Soon, the two were working on Elements’rerelease. Before and after its publication, White polished and defended his professor’s stern notional aphorisms (“Omit needless words”) while refashioning broader themes to suit the times. Publishing vet Garvey provides considerable context, detailing both Strunk and White’s careers, and positing them as “master boat builder” and “pilot,” respectively, of a vessel that would for decades navigate readers toward clear, expository writing. Spiking his homage with thoughts from contemporary writers (Nicholas Baker loves that Elements represents “an act of affection toward a former professor”), Garvey crafts an ebullient but (suitably) efficient tribute to a much loved writing guide. (Oct.)

Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves
Adam L. Penenberg. Hyperion, $25.99 (288p) ISBN 9781401323493
In this clear-eyed collection of case studies, Fast Company contributing writer and NYU journalism professor Penenberg examines the engine driving the growth of web 2.0 businesses like Flickr, YouTube and eBay to Facebook and Twitter: the viral loop. The concept behind a viral loop is simple—in order to use the product, you have to spread it, thus creating massive, user-driven growth cycles—after all, Penenberg explains, social networks like Facebook are worthless to a user if one’s friends aren’t also using the products. Viral loops are nothing new, of course, and Penenberg has certainly done his homework, tracing the concept back through its analog roots via entertaining and enlightening anecdotes about companies like Tupperware, which used “parties” to turn ordinary housewives into an army of sales reps, to Charles Ponzi—yes, he of the Ponzi scheme, a viral scam recently taken to historic levels by Bernie Madoff. Penenberg truly succeeds, however, in showing how the viral loop has found its groove on the Internet, fueling a wave of billion-dollar companies all built on word of mouth—and, of course, user clicks. Solidly researched and briskly-written, Penenberg at once captures a great business and tech story, as well as a defining moment in our online culture. (Oct.)

LIFESTYLE

Female Brain Gone Insane: An Emergency Guide for Women who Feel Like They Are Falling Apart
Mia Lundin. HCI, $14.95 paper (248p) ISBN 9780757314162
In this powerful, sanity-saving health guide, nurse practitioner Lundin, longtime researcher and director of a center for hormonal and nutritional studies, examines hormone changes including perimenopause and menopause, cutting through the fog of conflicting information over the benefits and risks of hormone therapy. Taking readers through the science behind women’s life changes and often disruptive symptoms that come with them, Lundin also provides helpful information on adrenal health, identifying hormonal phases and emotional types, and ways to boost mental health with diet and supplements. Armed with Lundin’s emotional rescue plan, readers will have everyday and long-range strategies for dealing with hormone changes many women continue to suffer through in silence. (Nov.)

ILLUSTRATED

 Earth Forms
Stephen Strom. Dewi Lewis, $45 (96p) ISBN 9781904587743
The traditional template for landscape composition is widely inclusive: valleys, mountains, sky, clouds, people, animals, shrubbery, etc., but the photographic eye of Strom (Secrets from the Center of the World; Otero Mesa) sees natural landscapes as a medium for the exploration of form. Using the compositional vocabulary of cubism, Strom examines linear and two-dimensional relationships—lines, curves, ovoids, polyhedrons and other geographical abstractions—with painterly, square, deliberately-framed compositions. In these images, largely from the American Southwest, expanse and distance are never obvious: the sky never appears, so the mind seldom considers the view in three dimensions, perceiving instead a flat expanse. While some images celebrate the horizontal, the main focus is onthe intersection of naturally occurring angular forms. Strom also uses color (often in plants) like Georges Braque and later artists: to outline, highlight, and emphasize contrasting forms and angles. With a few exceptions, these photos were taken in the desert southwest. Superfluous closing text by Albert Stewart is a prime example impenetrable contemporary art criticism, full of incomprehensible jargon. Taken on their own terms, these photos are a wonder and a challenge. (Sept.)

Enough to Go Around: Searching for Hope in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Darfur
Chip Duncan. Select Books, $34.95 (160p) ISBN 9781590791981
Part photo journal, part philanthropist’s travelogue, Duncan’s original and honest account of one American’s connection with individuals in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Darfur makes a colorful and eye-opening tour of communities in peril. Inspired by Abraham Bongassi, the field director for Save the Children in Saharan Africa, Duncan made the idea of “sharing without thinking” his personal mission. Duncan’s first-hand account of helping those facing crisis—including the very non-governmental aid workers already working to help—is captivating, especially alongside a gorgeous array of color photographs capturing the land and people. With maps, statistics, and cogent background information, Duncan’s travels hit home whether he’s describing a driver listening to Billy Joel on the streets of Afghanistan or the Pakistan hotel he stayed in just a week before it was bombed. Duncan’s addendum, “Things We Can Do,” provides resources and related reading for readers caught up by Duncan’s spirit of giving. (Oct.)

India Exposed: The Subcontinent A-Z
Clive Limpkin. Abbeville, $29.95 (216p) ISBN 9780789209948
Following a visit, retired photojournalist Limpkin was so taken with India that he spent three years “crisscross[ing] the subcontinent, seeing the best and enough of the worst.” This is his roundup, a know-it-all’s travelogue with bright, crisp photographs, conversational anecdotes, rich first-hand accounts, and guide-book style stats. Limpkin moves alphabetically through those things that left the greatest impression on him, providing idiosyncratic commentary, and is at his best when exposing the comic side of this complicated nation: his entry on “Overload,” for example, beautifully and wryly captures the daily reality of mopeds stacked high with people and goods, workers loading sacks of goods on their shoulders and head, and overflowing trains snaking through the countryside. Less impressive are short-sighted entries on everything from British rule and independence (with no mention of Gandhi) to Hinduism (dismissing the way for life 800 million-plus adherents in two broad sentences) to marriages (focusing on the “repellent practice” of dowries) to some of India’s most tragic and complex contemporary problems: underage labor, poverty, opposition of women, sustaining the holy city of Varansi. For all the volume’s beauty and some genuinely enjoyable entries, readers are likely to find Limpkin’s account far more subjective—and disagreeable—than its author seems to realize. (Oct.)

 The National Parks: America’s Best Idea
Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns. Knopf, $50 (432p) ISBN 9780307268969
Duncan and Burns, who last teamed on Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip, rejoin in this visually stunning guide to the unforgettable landscapes and fascinating history of America’s national parks. A companion to the documentary miniseries, this book provides not only an armchair tour of the parks but lessons in American history and biography, as Duncan and Burns attempt to answer the question, “Who are we?” through the foundation and legacy of American conservation. From Yellowstone, the first national park, to Acadia to the Everglades, readers will learn the origins of many of the parks, monuments, and historic areas across the U.S., illustrated with more than a century’s worth of photographs. A recurring theme throughout history has been the value and purpose of conservation and beauty, versus utility and tourism, and the story of the parks brings it into brilliant focus; readers will meet characters like John Muir, Horace Albright, Stephen Mather, Adolph Murie, and others who helped create the existing park system (with no shortage of attention paid to Theodore Roosevelt). Likely to inspire adventure-seekers of all generations, this broad, deep, evocative survey is just the kind of volume readers have come to expect from filmmaker and cultural historian Burns. (Sept.)

To the Rescue: Found Dogs with a Mission
Elise Lufkin, photos by Diana Walker. Skyhorse, $19.95 (160p) ISBN 9781602397729
In their third collaboration, Animal adoption activist Lufkin (Not Bartlett’s) and Time magazine photographer Walker profile the adoptive owners of working dogs, 53 in all, who serve the public and law enforcement officials as certified therapy animals, guides for the disabled, bomb detectors, drug sniffers, and other roles: Rusty is a Golden Retriever mix who visits second graders in an English-as-a-second-language class; Roxy helps her wheelchair-bound owner by opening containers and doors; Micah is a white German shepherd who aids emergency officials in search and rescue situations. Long-shot stories abound, such as the tale of Sophia, a Mexico City street dog who wound up in the U.S., bringing comfort to hospice patients; tissues required. Beginning with a foreword by actor and talk show host Bonnie Hunt, each warm, heart-felt story builds on the last, and includes fitting photos (though readers may wish they were bigger and more numerous). This feel-good book should please animal- and dog-lovers, especially those who live with a working dog. (Nov.)

FICTION

The Art Student’s War
Brad Leithauser. Knopf, $28.95 (512p) ISBN 9780307271112
Leithauser’s sixth novel is the story of Bea Paradiso, a character modeled after the author’s late mother-in-law. Early in the story, Bea volunteers to draw portraits of wounded soldiers during World War II. Given the novel’s title, one might expect this unique scenario to be the premise of the book, but the few pages devoted to Bea’s sketches are overwhelmed by the melodrama that dominates the rest of the story. Much is made of the rivalry between Bea’s mother and her aunt Grace, which culminates into a ridiculous argument over a bathing suit malfunction. Then, of course, there is Bea’s romantic life; her affections are torn between the glamorous Ronny Olsen and the bookish Henry Vander Akker. However, Henry lures Bea into an empty house leading to a strange and muddied rape scene. Despite this mishap, when Henry is killed in battle, Bea remembers him as a martyr and playfully refers to him as her “virginity-stealer.” The story then inexplicably skips several years into the future, where Bea is married to Grant, a lawyer who appears out of nowhere in the novel. The second half of the book is largely nostalgic toward the characters of Bea’s past—a less-than-appealing undertaking, considering that the endeavors of the first half were abandoned so unceremoniously. (Nov.)

Dirty Old Men: And Other Stories
Omar Tyree. Atria/Strebor, $23 (384p) ISBN 9781593092733
The award-winning author of Pecking Order teams up with Erotic Publisher Zane for this collection of fifteen stories about aging African American men and the adventures that they want—and often have—with younger women. Harold, the protagonist in “The Bartender,” is a married man pushing fifty, yet nevertheless nursing drinks in a Chicago bar and lusting after the new lady bartender. With his birthday approaching, Harold worries he can’t compete with younger and “hungry as vultures” men. “Sugar Daddy Rules” is the story of clean-cut and cautious Clarence who learns the ways of wooing hot young things from his gold-chain-wearing coworker Maurice. Despite Maurice’s advice, Clarence learns his lesson the hard way when he lets Brenda, a college senior with sex appeal, get inside his head—and wallet. The remaining stories are set in other places around the US like Nevada, Virginia, Florida, and Washington, D.C., but revolve around the same fantasy and Viagra-fueled obsession of scoring with a younger honey. (Oct.)

The Geometry of God
Uzma Aslam Khan. Interlink, $18 paper (386p) ISBN 9781566567749
Uzma Aslam Khan chronicles the struggle of one family in Pakistan during and after President-General Zia’s administration as it battles on the side of evolution against creationism and fundamentalism. Accompanying her paleontologist grandfather on a field dig, eight-year-old Amal stumbles upon a major scientific discovery: a dog/whale like ear-bone fossil. As Amal and her sister grow older, political tensions in their country escalate. Their grandfather, Zahoor, refuses to stop teaching evolution and becomes the focal point of a smear campaign put forth by the Party of Creation. Zahoor becomes a public pariah after being blamed for converting Norman Anwar, a former Party member responsible for censoring textbooks. As the nation moves toward the twenty-first century, Amal takes on her grandfather’s love of science and breaks ground as a woman in the academia of an Islamic nation. Khan attempts to write the novel from the perspectives of the four main characters, ultimately causing long, drawn-out chapters that are often redundant. Too many anecdotes make an otherwise interesting storyline a bear to read. (Nov.)

 The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats
Hesh Kestin. Dzanc (Consortium, dist.), $16.95 paper (334p) ISBN 9780976717782
From the author of the short fiction collection Based on a True Story comes a vibrant, hilarious addition to the genre of mob tragicomedy. Twenty-year-old Russell Newhouse, a quick-witted scholar and skirt-chaser, has New York’s organized crime scene thrust upon him by a man called Shushan “Shoeshine” Cats, who interrupts a meeting of a Brooklyn Jewish men’s society where Russell is serving as secretary. Shushan is in need of a favor and promptly takes Russell under his wing. What ensues is a classic boy-meets-mob story: part noir, part comedy, part epic. Kestin’s richly layered characters—a monstrously obese German organized crime attorney named Frit von Zeppelin, a Jewish Texan who speaks in malapropisms, a dentist who anglicizes or Yiddishizes his name depending on his mood—are straight out of Dickens; his vivid attention to the details of place, New York, and time, 1963, is like poetic journalism; and his snappy, concise prose and dialogue is on par with Raymond Chandler. Kestin zips through Russell’s sexual trysts, dealings in back rooms of Little Italy restaurants, and encounters with historical events like the JFK assassination with unflagging humor and insight. (Nov.)

A Questionable Life
Luke Lively. Beaufort, $24.95 (432p) ISBN 9780825305214
In his debut novel, Lively combines his background as a bank executive and motivational speaker to deliver what reads like a self-help book disguised as fiction. Tenacious Philadelphia banker Jack Oliver has always put career before everything else—family, colleagues and friends—until his employer, Philadelphia Trust & Guaranty, is purchased by a mega-chain, knocking Jack to the bottom of ladder. The stress lands him in the hospital, where he realizes his wife and two children have all but abandoned him, and his mistress only loves his power. A mutual friend introduces Jack to Benjamin Price, the old-fashioned president of a small Virginia bank, who not only offers Jack a fresh career start but helps him re-evaluate his life by forcing him to question what he holds dear. Each of 44 chapters open with a question (“Where Have You Been?”) and a trite quote (“We lose what we fail to use”), and Oliver’s woe-is-me narration quickly wears thin. Lively relies on predictable conventions, but does spin a good story; especially vibrant are tense scenes of corporate greed and deceit. (Oct.)

The Sisterhood of the Rose
Jim Marrs. Disinformation, $24.95 (400p) ISBN 9781934708293
Veteran journalist and conspiracy theorist Marrs (Rule by Secrecy) ropes up Nazis and ancient secret societies for his uneven fiction debut, set amidst the machinations of WWII. When the team of archeologist Giselle Tchaikovsky discovers a mysterious crystal skull near Belize, they’re double-crossed by a murderous German colleague. Giselle vows revenge, journeying to Europe where the skull has been turned over to Hitler. Once in France, however, Giselle becomes involved with Resistance members, including university scholars and early Cathar devotees, and eventually widens her quest for the skull to a campaign for peace. True to form, Giselle’s quest propels her along a convoluted path through Europe and Russia, ultimately leading her to resurrect an ancient sisterhood dedicated to peace and the preservation of ancient, sacred artifacts. With one-dimensional characters, stilted dialogue and lengthy “instructional” passages, this novel moves laboriously toward a predictable Nazi-foiling finale. (Nov.)